This song seems to be about not just taking life as it comes, but standing up for yourself and making the world conform to you. Either that, or it could be about completely disregarding the 'direction' that others are going and doing the complete opposite.

Personally, I think it's a mix of both.

Really, it is quite lame that this was Trooper's only American hit (Trooper was a Canadian band), and though this is one of their better songs, they do have other good songs that never even made it to American radio.

Anyone not familiar with Trooper should look into some of their other songs, not only this one (in particular, 3 Dressed Up As A 9).

General CommentThe meaning on this is pretty obvious as has been stated, though there is a bit past the basic interpretation as well, which's implied in the "raise a little hell" line, as well as the entire "Nobody's going to help you You just got to stand up alone And dig in your heels and see how it feels To raise a little hell of your own" line.

It's not "just" about standing up for whot yeu believe in, and not just about 'doing something about it rather than crying over it', but also it implies that there's times yeu're going to have to do more than just complain, but actually go far past the line and grab people's attention in drastic ways.

It's an unfortunate message that shouldn't be required, but it's true... as much as we'd LIKE for some of the most obvious things to be... well... OBVIOUS, people can be stupid, especially in large groups. Mob mentalities are ridiculous, as can near religious zeal on topics that people are INSISTANT on regardless of how much information there is to the contrary. Throwing endless amounts of facts and proof at them won't convince them they're wrong; they've already made up their mind. The only way to break that is to do something so drastic it stands out and leaves them in a state of shock long enough to get the message through their thick skulls.

This can be seen all over the place in alot of forms, a semi recent example being that someone sued oreo because their cookies were unhealthy. NO, REALLY!? Oreo cookies are unhealthy!? But that's the point, it's obvious they weren't healthy, they're COOKIES. The fact that they did something that seemed so stupid it got mass media attention... and they won because they were basically doing it as a publicity stunt to draw attention to the concept of trans fats and how horribly bad they are. Publishing "stop using trans fats" articles does virtually nothing. Telling people it's unhealthy doesn't matter, people don't care if a cookie or mcdonald's hamburger are unhealthy, that's obvious. The thing is people didn't realize just HOW bad they were. This kind of shock to the system can be whot's required to jar people long enough to get the information out that yeu want to provide.

And as such... "raising a little hell" is exactly how to do it. It doesn't have to be tearing down walls, killing or anything like that, but making a big enough noise to draw mass media attention, or on a smaller scale, to get people to just stop arguing long enough to listen, is often whot's required. If yeu have to stand up on top of a table in the middle of a meeting with dozens of people bickering with each other, and yell at them to all SHUT UP, then DO IT. Just being pissy that they're arguing endlessly and not listening to reason won't fix anything, they need a slap in the face, so give it to them.

The song basically encourages things like protesting or awareness marches on the small scale, up to the high end of a coup to overthrow a government. Drastic action's sometimes the only thing that works, as much as we hate it. I'm highly liberal, but I'm also a realist, and just because we WANT there to be no more death, pain, etc, the fact is sometimes it's the only way to get things done. We can't live in the fantasy world of hollywood where the good guys let the bad guys go every week or movie or whotever, if yeu let that dictator free just because he saved yeur life, he's still going to just run out and kill another 50,000 the second he gets the chance to do it. Yeah it sucks, and yes the world is all screwed up, but we can either complain, or fight it.

Song's got the right idea. One person raising a little hell can encourage the rest to get off their butts and follow. Do yeu honestly think political movements just 'happen'? They have to start somewheres, and it's usually with a single individual who just said "screw it, I'm not putting up with this foolishness anymore" and make a stand, and draw in others around them. It only takes a small display of power to start the ball rolling, so don't give up just because yeu're only one person, every flood had to start with a single raindrop.